William Verity revels in the red dirt and blue sky on a lonely desert
ride in Australia.

So there I am, as alone as I have ever been, the vacant outback road stretching out before me to the distant horizon.

The desert here is so flat that it curves away at its distant edge, another sign that this country is tricky, magical perhaps also, and that what once seemed certain and solid has now become fluid and unsure.

Hot wind buffets my face and the edges of my helmet, while the powerful thrumming of the motorcycle thrusts me forward towards the endless space of the vacant blue heavens. Although the road is arrow-straight and perfectly flat, the appearance is one of a constant, gentle sloping up towards the horizon. And while it is high summer now, towards the middle of day and sweltering with a dry heat, there is the mirage of cool, shimmering silver flooding the bitumen, always retreating from the approaching hollows and reforming at the furthest distance, where the road meets the sky.

The heat melts even the landscape so the rocks and red sand blur with the outlines of gun-metal green saltbush and stunted gums, used by feral goats and resting kangaroos for scant shade from the unrelenting sun.

At first, it's a hint, a glint of sun on chrome sparking a sharp reflection. Then a dark form emerges from the mercury mist, becoming solid as it edges closer until it takes the shape of the rushing monster of these vacant outback highways.

Although the road train and the Harley-Davidson are closing at a combined speed of 250kmh, the climax comes with agonising anticipation. After minutes that seem like hours, the Mack truck is upon me and I brace my body, holding to the handle bars for dear life.

WHOOOSH!

The smashing headwind threatens to send the bike wobbling out of control and onto the treacherous gravel lining the shoulder, but I am staunch, the bike is true and the truck is suddenly gone, leaving me alone again on the empty road with the rocks, the roadkill, the flapping black crows, the 'roos, the emus and goats, the sand, the saltbush, the heat, the beating sun and the blistering blue of eternity.

It's been a dream 20 years in the making, to get on a bike and ride west, with no direction home.

Since that first glimpse of the endlessly rolling sand waves of the Simpson Desert as I flew over my new country for the first time on a plane from London, I knew I had to go. That I could never call myself an Australian if I had not experienced the red dirt and the blue sky for myself.

It was Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance who wrote that travelling through a landscape in a car is just more television. That to experience it, you have to be in it. To smell it. To feel the heat. To be weary but exhilarated by the end.

And so it was finally, that I found both the time – seven clear days without commitments – and the transport, a massive Harley-Davidson cruiser.

It was 200 miles west of Sydney that the world started to change. The first saltbush started appearing in the wheat paddocks that stretched to the far horizon, dotted with gums. The land stretched out and became flatter and so straight that corners, when they came, surprised me. There's the Great Dividing Range that comes first, barely more than a hillock if you cross west of the Blue Mountains.

Hard to believe that this dyke splits the continent, that all rain west of here flows not east but the long route south. If it flows at all.

Then the paddocks became larger and the settlements further apart, a rich mix of cattle, canola, vineyards and olives giving way to golden wheat dotted with gums.

The traffic cop stops me for a random breath test on the western edge of Nyngan on the Mitchell Highway, near the geographical centre of NSW, and warns me of feral goats and emus west of Cobar.

''They don't mix too well with these machines,'' he says, nodding at the Harley. ''Where are you headed?''

''Broken Hill,'' I say.

''Long way to go.''

One of the truths seldom expressed is that large swathes of the travelling experience are often unpleasant - hanging around in airports, missing trains, schlepping around city pavements, coming down with some disease. We remember the 10 per cent that lifts us out of the ordinary, and that's enough to set us dreaming for more.

Yet for a motorcyclist exploring his own state, the adventure starts the moment he rides out of his driveway. If he's lucky, the trip will build and culminate in a moment of the sublime, even the spiritual.

So it was on this outback trip, as I set out from Broken Hill, an isolated mining town in the far west of NSW, 500km from Adelaide and more than 1000km from Sydney.

It was the end of a sweltering day, as I rode out past the mining town of Silverton (home of Mad Max and many Aussie beer commercials) to the Mundi Mundi lookout – a flat area of gravel with a view onto landscape so flat that the horizon is curved.

On the way out, the change came. Rain started spitting, stinging my cheek, and releasing that fragrant, dusty smell of the desert when wet. On my left was the setting sun and the clear blue sky. On my right was a massive wall of grey cloud flickering with lightning and scored through by a double rainbow.

Ignoring the hesitant rain, I rode on towards the distant horizon until dusk set in and the kangaroos started appearing. Then I returned to my hotel and my slow journey home.